On Sept. 11, 2001, we watched the world change before our eyes. Time after time, the images played across television screens: the collapsing twin towers of the World Trade Center; smoke rising above scars burned into the Pentagon; and the wreckage of an airliner strewn across a Pennsylvania field. Even the date, 9-11, became an icon for a different and more threatening world.

Here in Hawai'i, while we grieved with families who lost loved ones and friends in the terror attacks, we also moved decisively toward confronting the challenges of a new kind of world war: the global war on terrorism.

We began development of a quick-reaction force capability involving the Hawai'i National Guard and law enforcement officers from county and state agencies. A committee of representatives from county, state, and federal law enforcement agencies that State Civil Defense had organized for the sharing of intelligence about potential threats in the Islands, was expanded to the present-day Hawai'i Emergency Preparedness Executive Consortium.

In 2003 we launched the annual Asia-Pacific Homeland Security Summit, bringing together experts from around the Pacific basin to share their experiences in combating terrorism. This year's summit is scheduled for Oct. 8-10 at the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel.

During the past seven years, we have invested $140 million in Homeland Security grants for planning training and equipment for county and state agencies that must constantly prepare to deal with the threat of a terror attack in our Islands. We have developed strategies so that those funds, along with money provided by the Legislature and the Lingle-Aiona administration, can apply to dealing with natural disasters as well as terrorism.

We have also seen our sons and daughters go off to war. Since 9/11 more than 3,500 members of Hawai'i's Army and Air National Guard have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait; many of them more than once.

In fact, nearly 1,000 of the 1,200 troops from the 29th Brigade now training in Texas for duty in Kuwait have served at least one previous deployment. Add to this the reservists and active-duty troops from Hawai'i who have gone to war and it is easy to see how this conflict has touched the lives of so many of our people.

We are sometimes tempted to ask, "When will everything be the way it was before 9/11?" It will never be the same. Events such as the terror attacks leave an indelible mark on all of us who remember what happened that day. We will never forget, and neither will history.

But something else has been happening during these past seven years. We have continued going to the beach, supermarkets and shopping centers. We visit friends. We worship in our churches, temples and synagogues. We have raised our voices in protest and debate, and we have voted in elections.

In short, although the global war on terrorism continues on many fronts, we have continued to live as free people in a free society.

Maj. Gen. Robert G.F. Lee is the adjutant general and Homeland Security adviser of the state of Hawai'i.